Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I won't stand in the way of any reasonable measure to assist Australians to be part of the great Australian dream of homeownership. However, I'm cautious that blind adherence to government incentives can exacerbate the very problems they seek to fix. The Help to Buy Bill 2023 proposes a national equity program that states and territories may opt in to help Australians to buy a home if they currently do not have the sufficient funds for a deposit.

On paper, this sounds like a reasonable and sensible approach to assist everyday Australians. It also sounds remarkably similar to government programs that already exist or have existed throughout the country. So I have some questions. If these programs are or were successful at the state and territory level, why do we need a federal program? If these programs were not successful, why does the government believe that they can implement the same program with a different result? And, lastly, will a federal program simply displace state and territory programs with no net effect?

We all want to see homeownership attainable for those who want it. Equity and fairness are cornerstones of our democracy, and we must do all we can to ensure that everyone has a fair go. However, I'm concerned that this bill and many of the policies of this government with respect to housing are failing to address the core problems of home ownership and the cost of living, which I'll discuss further shortly. Before I do that I wish to look at how governments in the past have dealt with this important issue.

Former prime minister Robert Menzies spoke of the aspiration of home ownership in his seminal speech on 'the forgotten people' in 1942. Since that speech, state and federal governments of both persuasions have made explicit policy objectives to achieve home ownership aspirations of Australians.

While government policy objectives have not changed over time, the mechanism to obtain these objectives has. Postwar policies were typically supply-side orientated—that is they promoted housing construction and also included the sale of public housing, which provided capital to build more public housing stock. In the 1980s, governments moved to demand-side policies with measures such as first home owner stamp duty concessions and grants and, more recently, shared equity programs.

It's very clear from the data that the demand-side policies have not worked. In the age cohorts of 25 to 34 and 35 to 44, home ownership rates have declined dramatically from their peaks in the early 1980s. Why did we then persist with policies that have failed?

The government will argue that this bill simply complements its many supply-side policies, like the National Housing Accord, the Housing Australia Future Fund and the National Housing Infrastructure Facility—to name a few. While this is true, these measures are unfortunately not keeping pace with other government policies that are adding pressure.

Home ownership is intrinsically linked to the total cost of the property, including taxes and transfer costs, availability of property, the deposit required and the ability of the prospective owner to service a loan. In this term of government we've had successive rate rises that have seen the repayments on a mortgage of $750,000 rise by around $2,000 per month, a staggering $24,000 of after-tax money per year that many Australian households need to find in order to service a loan. This has resulted in many Australians being priced out of the market because they can no longer meet the lending criteria

I've mentioned in this place previously that inflation—the driver of these mortgage rate rises—has been running hot because the government added $209 billion of new spending and has implemented a 'big Australia' policy that has seen record migration levels. Last year we recorded 737,200 overseas arrivals and 219,100 departures—a net migration of 518,100. This equates to more than 80 per cent of the population increase. The government controls migration and it is therefore on the government to explain why it has allowed so many to settle in Australia at a time when we already had immense housing pressures, and the natural demand of that flow-on from this is inflationary.

Last week the Housing Industry Association advised that new modelling showed we are already 200,000 homes behind the target set by the government in August last year. While 96,250 detached houses are expected in this financial year, it is down 12.6 per cent on the previous 12 months, and down by almost a third from the 2020-21 peak. Clearly the government's supply-side policies are not working to a level to keep up with that demand, which is overextended by mass migration policies.

As I mentioned at the outset, I will not stand in the way of this bill. I will support this bill because I want every Australian to be able to realise their dream of owning their own home. However, I'll make it very clear that I will withdraw my support for this bill if amendments are made that reflect the wishes of the Australian Greens, who seek to attack the mums and dads of this country who have worked hard to buy a second home. Any changes to negative gearing or capital gains tax would be a broken promise and one that I steadfastly object to.

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